The Daily Grifter is a periodical that will blow your mind by delivering Stories, Articles and Awareness Posts about the most notorious modern day and past Grifters (Con-Men) and Scams. You will not only read about today's Cons and Con Men, but also the infamous ones who have sealed their names forever in the Grifter Hall of Shame.

Kaushal Niroula, the Nepalese-born purported con man on trial for allegedly masterminding a plan to murder and loot a Palm Springs retiree, has been given a judge's blessing to act as his own attorney, according to The Desert Sun.

Niroula, 28, who during his alleged San Francisco con-man career carried himself as if he were a high-rolling Nepalese Prince, had burned through three attorneys since he and his four alleged co-conspirators were arrested a year ago.

Niroula, along with San Francisco attorney David Replogle, 60, ex-Niroula boyfriend Danny Garcia, 27, and purported hired muscle Craig McCarthy, 30, face first-degree murder charges in connection with the December, 2008 disappearance of Clifford Lambert. The five men are accused of killing Lambert so he could not contest forged power of attorney documents used to sell his Palm Springs house.

It's tempting to think that Niroula is just another foolhardy and arrogant criminal defendant unable to accept bad news relayed by his attorneys. Bolstering this view is the way Niroula seemed desperate to concoct elaborate fantasies about his own life. He is alleged to have stolen more than $1 million and then spent it maintaining a high-power facade, with fancy hotel rooms, travel, clothes, limousines, and other high-life accouterments.

It's possible Niroula's decision to defend himself is merely an extension of his megalomaniac fantasy life.

SF Weekly's reporting, however, suggests something else at play.

As previuosly reported in this space, Niroula may be an earthly vessel for supernatural forces of evil, and may possess personal powers allowing him to hold sway over the U.S. criminal justice system.

"There are too many instances of him getting out and going free to blame it on his charisma or a lack of good police work," said Hawaii attorney Stephen Shaw, who represented Megumi Hisamatsu, a Japanese woman who has claimed in a San Francisco federal lawsuit that Niroula bilked her out of $500,000. "I attribute it to the supernatural. He's evil. He's like a vessel. And if people don't treat it like this, he's going to continue doing what he's doing."

When Riverside County Superior Court Judge David Downing ruled earlier this month that Niroula will now drive his own defense, did he ask himself: Can Riverside County prosecutors and juries penetrate a netherworld defense?

"Somebody along the line -- a judge, or a probation officer -- is going to agree with me and say, 'I'm seeing this as a presence of evil,'" said Shaw, when we interviewed him last year.

Different terms for con artists include: flim flam man, sham artist, shyster or sheister, bunco man (after the name of a popular "fixed" card game that has since become synonymous with scams), bamboozler, swindler, grifter and hustler.